Forty minutes before midnight my kindly neighbor, who owned a tricycle, drove me to Commonwealth Avenue, through inner, narrow, mostly dark, roads. The sky was at its gloomiest, most houses were unlit and lifeless. I got down the tricycle, crossed the wide Commonwealth Avenue, took a jeep and as I sat I felt the jarring vibrations of the loud bass speakers. The jeep driver was chasing death. That wasn’t bad enough. As if from a virtual reality game, two speeding (or flying) buses approached, sandwiched then outraced the jeep. The bus drivers seemed to be outsmarting each other as to who could first fly the bus to the otherworld! Haven’t I contemplated a few times on how to face the creepy image of death without fear, without remorse, without compromising my Christian faith? I couldn’t discover how I could pass through the portal of the otherworld without killing myself: to escape many years of prolonged and different levels of pains and sufferings, humiliations, debacles, deprivations of many sorts, and the chimera that troubles my mind! Infinity of why’s annoyingly buzzed my headspace. I had to stifle them.

I reached the call center five minutes before midnight for my 0000hr to 0900hr shift. 5 more minutes and gloriously, the other side of midnight, will dawn at last! Another day! Yes! A new day of light, hope and help! In a few hours an Omnipotent Hand will switch on the planetary light and the mighty sun will soon swallow the darkness.